What an excellent investigative report on an outrageous problem in our area.

HOAs — homeowners Associations — should not be able to foreclose for payments. Businesses and lawyers are waiting to pounce. It is time for our legislators to address this problem. Keep up the great investigative journalism. You have our attention.

What's in a word? “Reform” usually carries the connotation of improving, upgrading, modernizing, etc.

As a majority of the American public has discovered, the Affordable Care Act is anything but an improvement. This is especially true for the Americans who have had their hours cut, who face higher costs because of losing their current health insurance, or who have lost their jobs because of attempts at a governmental takeover of the national health care system. Even labor unions that initially supported the bill have come to realize what a disaster this is. The AFL-CIO met last week with President Obama to demand that their members receive government subsidies to cover the increased health insurance costs they now face.

If the E-N wanted to remain neutral, the headline would have been, “Cruz vs. Obamacare.” If you wanted to be accurate, it would have been, “Cruz vs. Socialized Medicine.”

I keep hearing how Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill held different views, but they were able to compromise and pass needed legislation — a skill that current politicians do not seem to have. Most people agree that some parts of Obamacare are good and needed, and that we are spending ourselves into a situation that will lead to a disaster. But as it stands now, both sides will not bend on their positions.

My suggestion is open negotiations. Get the president, a diverse group of leaders and members from the House and Senate together, in front of live TV cameras, and let them negotiate a solution. In that way, if an agreement is not obtained, the electorate can judge who is standing in the way of progress and vote accordingly in 2014.

Tea party man Jeff Judson says he stands up for “freedom” and goes on to characterize the intellectualism of liberals as ignorance. He says they believe in “trust of the individual,” and that government intrusion must be thwarted in the name of free markets.

The savings and loan debacle in the 1980s and the Wall Street debacle in 2008 remind me of how elated I was that the government “intruded” and managed to rescue the lifetime of work and investment I made in my retirement funds.

Somehow, the “trust but verify” aspect of conservative philosophy goes by the wayside, depending on who stands to benefit from unbridled greed and how soon another collapse occurs. Taxpayers have borne the burden of their brand of “freedom” in the form of hundreds of billions dollars in bailouts. Let ignorance reign.

Mr. Judson must be chagrined by the front page story in the same issue ... the story about how an enterprising investment company also “never says 'no' to freedom” (“Homeowner's loss is firm's gain”). It was all legal, of course, although immoral.

Judson implied that the “free market” is very smart. He's right, in the sense that a card shark is “very smart.” Government “interference” is an absolute necessity.

His column is made up of clichés and pejoratives. No substance. He aligns his tea party with the conservative party. They are two separate groups.

I haven't read “The Pencil,” the piece he referenced, and he said nothing to make me care to.

Bobby Riley

Fairy tale

In the United States today, we have dissembling politicians, disruptive media, a disputatious electorate and a despised president. Add to this a dissonant Congress, and we get a dysfunctional government leading to discredited foreign policy, dilapidated infrastructure, disreputable financiers, displaced workers, dispossessed homeowners and a disquieted populace.

In his opinion piece, Jeff Judson (who fails to mention freedoms conservatives do not want you to have) writes a lovely fairy tale from The Land of Never. If we just follow him down the yellow brick road, the Great Oz will make all well. All we need to do is believe.

Pick a sport — any sport. What would the game be like without rules, referees and penalties? Is there anything besides ideology and religion that is based on faith and trust rather than evidence and reason?

In the article regarding the lack of “College Town” name recognition for San Antonio, there were two photos and text about two of the Catholic Universities in the city, but nothing — no picture, no text — about the oldest university in town, St. Mary's.

Perhaps this reflects the total sense of the article, that our universities are unknown and unappreciated. Perhaps we are unlike other places, where the claim to fame is binge-drinking or other such conduct. Our universities emphasize things such as solid learn-ing and community involvement.

One has only to look at the list of public officials and judges who have come from St. Mary's University to understand the importance of this center of higher learning. St. Mary's has won awards for its students' involvement in projects to improve the comm-unity.